Motivating an Autistic Child

It can be very difficult to motivate an autistic child, often times because of their lack of imagination and communication skills.. A person's motivation is mainly converted by such a experiences, their desires and imagination...As favorably as past experiences, learning, and history.



Therefore motivation and interest come from past experiences and the desire to learn and have new experiences. Challenges which trigger memories of past anxieties or failures will mostly stimulate avoidance reactions and self-preservation responses. Motivating an autistic child can be helped by understanding the child's interests or preoccupations, fascinations however bizarre you may find them!...Use these interests as the bases of expanding the child's sometimes limited area of interest.



Try and avoid any tasks that trigger anxiety in the autistic child...these will only lead to avoidance. Give re-assurance and keep the tasks small to begin with...Give reinforcement regularly...Make the task milestones very small to begin with, then give positive reinforcement...Gradually increase the milestone to be reached before positive reinforcement is given.

Keep a record of all anxiety triggers and how they were dealt with...what positive reinforcement was used? Make certain everybody included in the child's care is following the same strategy. Create or obtain good social skills stories to help explain to the autistic child what they are doing for example a school trip or play, Christmas, making cards...

The social story should be pictorially rich, most autistic children are visual learners. Autism social stories are an excellent tool for helping an autistic child make sense of the world around them...giving them clear social cues as to how to act, what is expected of them, why we do certain things and what others are expecting of them.

-- Settle Autism Right Now! --